Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A total of 21.2 million people watched Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News television coverage of the Spending Review across the day on 20 October.

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Deputy Director General and Head of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Journalism, Mark Byford, said: "We knew from our research that the audience had an extraordinary interest in the Spending Review issues. In that context, we marshalled the specialist teams of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Journalism to come together and provide a service of high quality and impact. These figures show that during a major news story audiences turn to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ in huge numbers for trusted news and analysis."

The main Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ news programmes all had above average audiences: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Breakfast aired before the spending announcement, but still had an audience of 1.6m. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News At Six had 5m, the regional 6.30pm news had an average audience of 5.8m across the UK and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News At Ten had 4.9m. Newsnight also had an above average audience of 1.1m.

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News website had around 4.2 m UK unique users on 20 October, according to provisional data. This is likely to be the biggest day for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News site since the UK elections in May – when 7.4m used the site – and is expected to be slightly higher than the 4m seen on the 13 October, the day of the Chilean miners' rescue. The "Live: Spending Review" page was a particular success with almost 2.5 million UK page views on Wednesday. Some 800,000 UK users viewed audio/video on the News site on Wednesday, nearly twice as many as on an average weekday.

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News Channel performed significantly ahead of Sky News, reaching 3.8m viewers compared to 2.2m. The Spending Review programme on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two and the News Channel reached 3.8m between 11.30am and 3.30pm with an audience share of 14.2%.

In terms of the individual channel performances during the slot: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two Spending Review coverage reached 2.8m and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News Channel Spending Review coverage between 11.30-3.30 reached 1.1m , double the usual reach for the slot. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Parliament also drew in additional viewers, reaching 423,000 individuals yesterday, 286,000 up on this year's daily reach average.

PR